Have You Read?
Weird But Good-Weird
As of Late
It seems the book world is bifurcating between horror and romance. My editor tells me the market trend is for self-published romance novels to find a readership via social media, then migrate to a big, conventional publishing house. That also seems to be the trend for horror. With some crossover between fantasy fiction and horror-romance.
Last week while shopping the horror section I ran across the smallest book, lost between everything else. Song for the Unraveling of the World is a collection of short stories, some as short as flash fiction.1 The stories are linked in a way that suggests Slaves of New York and Jesus’ Son as well as Miles from Nowhere. Some stories hold my attention better than others, but I had the same issues getting into the Denis Johnson book, which I eventually carried with me like a Bible.
It’s the stickiness of the plots, and the sentences themselves that draw me in. The author is always subverting my expectations, and that zigging and zagging is very sexy. No, it’s not strict Minimalism, but the author stays in scene beautifully and limits the elements in a minimalist way. It’s left up to the reader to look for the patterns. The specific details are rendered so well that they keep you reading even as the more fantastic events might jar you out of the book. So far I’ve only read Evenson’s short stories, but eventually I’ll give his longer work a go. If you’re looking for a new author to read, or a holiday gift for a finicky reader, you could do worse.
Now for the Bittersweet News
I’d wager that the best horror-only bookstore in the world is Dark Delicacies in Burbank, California. Like so many independent book shops, it’s dark heart and soul are its owners, Sue and Del Howison. The shop is a wonder, but not for long. Before they retire, they’ve asked me and a few other authors to drop by for day-long book signings. I’ll be there Saturday, November 23rd from 11:00 AM until closing. If you’ve got loads of backlist you want signed … or holiday gifts you want inscribed … this is the day to catch me.
The author, Brian Evenson, is very smart to put a flash fiction story first to whet the buyer’s appetite.
Brian was my thesis mentor for my MFA. He is one of the most kind and generous people I have ever known. I’ve sent him this! He’s a very wonderful person.
Hey Chuck, in a recent video you spoke about how good ideas/stories always seem to erupt from you in one sitting — e.g. Chapter 6 of ‘Fight Club’ being written in an evening whilst you were at work. And I’m curious, how do you maintain this type of momentum for the duration of an entire novel? A short story I can understand, though for a novel that’s where I’m curious about the maintaining of momentum over time. I imagine it’s not one overall burst of momentum but rather a series of bursts of momentum for each individual chapter, section, scene, or whatever it may be. In the end, however, I suppose the individual bursts of energy are part of one much larger culminating effort.